1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to microfluidic devices and methods.
2. Description of Related Art
Traditional methods for crystal growth and crystallization are highly labor intensive and require significant quantities of material to evaluate and optimize crystal growth conditions. Examples of these methods include the free interface diffusion method (Salemme, F. R. (1972) Arch. Biochem. Biophys. 151:533-539), vapor diffusion in the hanging or sitting drop method (McPherson, A. (1982) Preparation and Analysis of Protein Crystals, John Wiley and Son, New York, pp 82-127), and liquid dialysis (Bailey, K. (1940) Nature 145:934-935).
Presently, the hanging drop method is the most commonly used method for growing macromolecular crystals from solution, especially for protein crystals. Generally, a droplet containing a protein solution is spotted on a cover slip and suspended in a sealed chamber that contains a reservoir with a higher concentration of precipitating agent. Over time, the solution in the droplet equilibrates with the reservoir by diffusing water vapor from the droplet, thereby slowly increasing the concentration of the protein and precipitating agent within the droplet, which in turn results in precipitation or crystallization of the protein.
The process of growing crystals with high diffraction quality is time-consuming and involves trial-and-error experiment on multiple solution variables such as pH, temperature, ionic strength, and specific concentrations of salts, organic additives, and detergents. In addition, the amount of highly purified protein is usually limited, multi-dimensional trials on these solution conditions are unrealistic, labor-intensive and costly.
A few automated crystallization systems have been developed based on the hanging drop methods, for example Cox, M. J. and Weber, P. C. (1987) J. Appl. Cryst. 20:366; and Ward, K. B. et al (1988) J. Crystal Growth 90:325-339. More recently, systems for crystallizing proteins in submicroliter drop volumes have been described including those described in PCT Publication Nos. WO00/078445 and WO00/060345.
Existing crystallization, such as hanging drop, sitting drop, dialysis and other vapor diffusion methods have the limitation that the material for analysis and the crystallization medium are exposed to the environment for some time. As the volumes of materials decrease, the ratio of surface area to volume ratio varies as the inverse of the radius of the drop. This causes smaller volumes to be more susceptible to evaporation during the initial creation of the correct mixture and during the initial period after the volume has been set up. Typical hanging drop plates can have air volumes of 1.5 milliliters compared to a sample drop size of 3-10 microliters. Moreover, typical methods expose the sample drop to the enviromnent for a duration of seconds to minutes. Small variability in the rate that samples are made can cause significant variations in the production of crystals. Small variations external environment also can cause significant variations in the production of crystals even if the rate that the samples are made is unchanged. Prior methods fail to reduce the problems of convection currents under 1 g such as those described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,886,646, without the large expenditure of resources or in methods that complicate crystal analysis.